Is fall really coming?

Although the temps are in the 80's some days, the fall is upon us. As we move from the slow pace of summer, we turn our minds to the life and ministry of our church.

Here are some upcoming events and projects you won't want to miss!

Attention Parents and 5th - 8th Graders - Our Fall kick-off event with area Lutheran churches   is Friday, September 12, at First Lutheran Church, 6:00-8:00 pm God's Work, Our Hands / Christian Education Kick-off All Church Event Sunday, September 14 - Join us for a potluck meal following worship! We will share information and have a conversation about Christian Education throughout   the 2014-2015 year. Then, after eating lunch, we will package cookies and care packages to send to military personnel in Afghanistan. We ask that you bake cookies ahead of time in preparation for this event. Items to bring for Care Packages: Cookies (Any kind EXCEPT chocolate - Chocolate does not survive the trip!!) Any kind of snacks or junk food Candy that is NOT chocolate Toiletry items Keurig-cup coffees We will begin collecting these items on Sunday, August 31, and package them Sunday, Sept. 14! Senior Saints - Monday, September 15, Westbrook Senior Citizens, Westbrook, 1:00 pm and Wednesday, September 17, Barron Center, Portland, 2:00 pm Paul's PALS - Sunday, September 28, Inn at the Village Square, Gorham, 2:00 pm The September meeting of PALS will be held on Wednesday, September 17th at 11:00 am at IHOP. The speaker will be Deanna Ross who will speak about Valentines. Planning meeting at 10:00. Please make your reservation by Friday, September 12th. Sunday, October 12 - Fall Bread for the World Offering of Letters during Coffee Hour Bible Sunday, October 26 - Children and youth will be receiving Bibles during worship on October 26. If your child has not received a Bible, please put his/her name on the list in the lobby. Children in 3rd Grade and above will receive a NRSV Bible. Children under 3rd Grade will receive a Children's Bible.

Special Lecture event!

"Bringing It All Home: A Recovery of the Ordinary" Dr. Janet Gunn will share her story of the Palestinians on Wednesday evening, September 17th from 7-8:30 at St. Ansgar Lutheran Church, 515 Woodford Street, Portland, ME. The focus of her story is a teenager from a refugee camp near Bethlehem who was shot by an Israeli soldier during the first year of the First Intifada and died two years later. Janet met the boy at a Palestinian hospital shortly after his fatal wound and accompanied him to a Boston hospital for six weeks of life-saving emergency medical treatment.  She became a member of his family over the course of the two years he survived on hyperalimentation, a feeding of essential minerals and vitamins by means of a tube attached to a major vein in his chest.   Janet flew back from a visiting professorship at Hobart & William Smith Colleges for the two- week wake following his death in the fall of 1990 when she was an integral  part of the wide community visitation with the boy's family. Her memoir, Second Life, is a testimony to the life and death of Mohammad along with the resulting recovery of the ordinariness of the life she seemed to have lost at the death of her father when she was five years old.  A kitchen spoon  begins and ends her story. Copies of her book, Second Life: A West Bank Memoir, (University of Minnesota Press, 1995) will be available for purchase.